


somewhere along in the bitterness

by HyperchaoticStarlight (MVPYurio)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Hurt Tony Stark, Not Steve Friendly, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Post-Civil War (Marvel), Songfic, The Author is Salty, Tony Angst, Tony Stark Feels, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 12:43:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16810861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MVPYurio/pseuds/HyperchaoticStarlight
Summary: Whatever dumb song was playing ends, and a new one begins with a piano pattern. He’s reading the letter again.





	somewhere along in the bitterness

**Author's Note:**

> Based on ["How to Save a Life"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkBvhnri5s0) by The Fray
> 
> So this is what happens when you hate Civil War and are trying to fall out of love with someone who broke your heart.
> 
> I don't usually write shit like this. I don't like writing angst in general, and as far as Marvel is concerned, my series has, up until this point, been enough for me to express how I feel. I haven't felt the need to do anything more than present what I wish had happened: the magical alternate universe where Steve comes clean right away and everyone can communicate. That had been fine.
> 
> But then I thought about the letter, really, properly, and I realized how absolutely bullshit it was. I'll let the story do the commentary, but before anyone gives me shit, I'm saying this as a survivor who has seen and experienced shit just like this.
> 
> And then again, back then I wasn't trying to fall out of love. To that point: a special thank you to the friend who eventually told me to stop, and then held me while I cried about it.

Tony doesn’t usually listen to the radio.

He doesn’t have any need to; he has plenty of playlists that FRIDAY can play on command. But Rhodey, inexplicably, has a _thing,_ likes listening to the radio, and Tony isn’t about to deny Rhodey _anything._ Not now. Not yet.

So he has the radio on, some station that Rhodey likes. Rhodey is on the couch, resting—he keeps trying to get up and do something, anything, and Tony has to keep telling him to rest.

(“Now you know how I feel,” they had said, almost simultaneously, and then they had laughed, and then they had stopped.)

So he has the radio on, and the music is way too quiet, too soft and pretty, but Rhodey likes it, and at least they’re in the middle of one of those “commercial-free hours.”

Whatever dumb song was playing ends, and a new one begins with a piano pattern. He's reading the letter again.

 **Step one, you say we need to talk**  
**He walks, you say "sit down it's just a talk"  
****He smiles politely back at you**  
**You stare politely right on through**

> _Tony, I'm glad you're back at the compound._ _I don't like the idea of you rattling around a mansion by yourself._

Tony almost laughs. He doesn't have a mansion. He hasn't had a mansion since he first met Steve. He has an empty tower and an empty compound. 

**Some sort of window to your right**  
**As he goes left and you stay right**

> _We all need family._ _The Avengers are yours, maybe more so than mine._

**Between the lines of fear and blame**  
**You begin to wonder why you came**

> _I've been on my own since I was eighteen._ _I never really fit in anywhere, even in the army._

At this, Tony does actually laugh, because if calling the Avengers Tony's family and claiming not to belong with anyone _after_ running away with virtually the entire team isn't disingenuous martyrdom, nothing is. The song swells up into a chorus.

 **Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend**  
**Somewhere along in the bitterness**  
**And I would have stayed up with you all night**  
**Had I known how to save a life**

Tony picks up the phone that Cap had sent along with the letter and stares down at it. It's one of those old flip phones, cheap, clunky. The only kind Steve knew how to use. He passes the phone back and forth between his hands, flipping it open and closed, but doesn't turn it on.

 **Let him know that you know best**  
**Cuz, after all, you do know best**

Tony still doesn't understand why he and Cap had disagreed on the Accords. Wasn't Cap supposed to be the honorable one, the lawful one, the one who always did the right thing? Wasn't he always saying that Tony was the arrogant one, the selfish one, the impulsive one? And yet, there he was, saying that he and only he knew what was best for the world, even as the world told him to stop, to slow down, to have restraint.

 **Try to slip past his defense**  
**Without granting innocence**

> _My faith's in people, I guess._ _Individuals._ _And I'm happy to say that, for the most part, they haven't let me down._

**Lay down a list of what is wrong  
** **The things you told him all along**

His hands clench into fists, knowing what Rogers was implying. After years and years of being compared to Captain America, now even Mr. Perfect himself thought Tony wasn't good enough.

**And pray to God he hears you**

> _Which is why I can't let them down either. Locks can be replaced, but maybe they shouldn't._

**And I pray to God he hears you**

"Fucking bullshit," Tony mutters to himself. Leave it to him to say some fucking bullshit, some philosophical blather about replacing locks. Meaningless nonsense. The chorus hits again.

 **Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend**  
**Somewhere along in the bitterness**  
**And I would have stayed up with you all night**  
**Had I known how to save a life**

 _I did enough,_ he tells himself. _I tried to strike a truce. I went to Siberia when I found out Barnes was framed._

 ****As he begins to raise his voice  
You lower yours and grant him one last choice  
** ** ****Drive until you lose the road** **  
**Or break with the ones you followed**

And then he saw the footage, he saw Barnes kill his parents, kill his _mother,_ and Rogers said he'd known. Rogers had known the entire time, and then, just for good measure, he shoved the stupid dinner plate that Howard had held over Tony's head until the day he died, into Tony's suit, and left him to die. Had the arc reactor been inside Tony's chest like it used to be, Tony would have died.

Rogers probably didn't even know that Tony'd had it taken out. It's not like he'd ever asked.

****He will do one of two things  
**** ****He will admit to everything** **

> _I know I hurt you, Tony. I guess I thought by not telling you about your parents I was sparing you, but I can see now that I was really sparing myself, and I'm sorry. Hopefully one day you can understand._

Tony screams—or maybe he sobs—as he throws his phone across the room. It hits the wall and shatters on impact, pieces falling to the floor. It's not his fault. He doesn't have to understand anything. He already _does_ understand. Rogers had tried to kill him. He'd tried to kill him. He'd tried to kill him.

 ****Or he'll say he's just not the same****

> _I wish we agreed on the Accords, I really do. I know you're doing what you believe in, and that's all any of us can do. That's all any of us should._

Rogers had tried to kill him, had lied to him, had destroyed him. Tony stares at the broken phone. Rogers had lied. Tony keeps staring at the phone, and without realizing it, he starts to move.

****And you'll begin to wonder why you came** **

The chorus hits again, and Tony's running to pick up the pieces and he's clutching them to his chest, scrambling to put them back together in the compound living room, without his tools or his bots or even his eyesight because his eyes are so goddamn full of tears.

 **Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend**  
**Somewhere along in the bitterness**  
**And I would have stayed up with you all night**  
**Had I known how to save a life**

"Tony," Rhodey says quietly, getting up and walking to Tony's side. It's an instrumental now, soft and pretty and awful. "Tony, stop. Put it down."

Tony looks up at Rhodey, shaking, trembling, and he hates himself, he hates himself.

"Tony, stop," Rhodey says again, a little more firmly. "Please."

He's a traitor. He's a traitor to everyone, to the Avengers, to Rhodey, to himself, but damn it if he's not an _honest_ traitor, so he says it, in a broken whisper: _"I don't want to."_

 **Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend**  
**Somewhere along in the bitterness**  
**And I would have stayed up with you all night**  
**Had I known how to save a life**

 **Where did I go wrong? I lost a friend**  
**Somewhere along in the bitterness**  
**And I would have stayed up with you all night**  
**Had I known how to save a life**

He's sobbing in Rhodey's arms now, a piece of cell phone still clutched in his fist, and some irrational, stupid part of him thinks that if he cries loud enough, Steve will come back and bring the others with him, that the Avengers could be whole again. That Tony could be whole again.

> _So, no matter what. I promise you, if you need us, if you need me, I'll be there._


End file.
